Woodbridge Man Faces Second Child Porn Conviction

WOODBRIDGE, VA — A Woodbridge man was convicted Monday on child pornography possession charges, marking the man's second conviction.

Matthew Scott Rocco, 38, had been on supervised release after a conviction in Virginia federal court in 2017 for possession of child sexual abuse material. On April 23, 2023, Homeland Security Investigations agents conducted a search warrant at Rocco's home. According to prosecutors, agents seized a cell phone from Rocco that contained darknet addresses, mostly with links to child pornography. The phone also had a download history in the "My Files DB" database with file names indicating child sexual abuse material. One folder titled "Balalaika_1" with contained ten videos showing minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Prosecutors say the phone had a history of what videos were played, and some videos were "indicative of" child sexual abuse material. The files were dated between Jan. 23, 2023 and April 21, 2023, the latter of which was two days before the federal search warrant.

Rocco faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years and up to 40 years in prison. He will be sentenced on Oct. 31.